Mississippi Casino Courses honored by Golfweek
The Mississippi Development Authority (MDA) Division of Tourism today announces that seven courses in the state have been voted onto Golfweek's "50 Best Casino Courses" list.
The seven courses – in order of rank with their architects – are:
• No. 2: Fallen Oak Golf Club (Tom Fazio)
• No. 18: Dancing Rabbit Golf Club's Azaleas Course (Tom Fazio/Jerry Pate)
• No. 23: Grand Bear Golf Club (Jack Nicklaus)
• No. 39: The Preserve Golf Club (Jerry Pate)
• No. 40: Shell Landing (Davis Love III)
• No. 43: Dancing Rabbit Golf Club's Oaks Course (Fazio/Pate)
• No. 48: The Bridges Golf Club (Arnold Palmer)
This is the fifth year Golfweek has conducted its casino course rankings. To produce the list, the magazine sends out a nationwide team of more than 600 course raters to survey more than 2,200 courses on the basis of 10 criteria, including routing, conditioning, variety and memorability of holes.
Mississippi and Nevada had the second-most courses on the list with seven, following Arizona, which led the way with eight. Overall 17 different states are represented on the list.
"The Golfweek rankings further prove that Mississippi is one of the most attractive locations in the U.S. for golf and gaming," said Mary Beth Wilkerson, the MDA's Tourism Division Deputy Director. "We’re the third-largest gaming destination in North America so it’s only fitting that the many gaming venues we have also feature top-notch golf courses."
Fallen Oak is an amenity of Beau Rivage Resort & Casino in Biloxi and is an MGM Resorts International property, just like its "sister" course, Shadow Creek in Las Vegas, which was rated No. 1 by Golfweek. Fallen Oak opened in November 2006 and is home to the Mississippi Gulf Resort Classic, the PGA Champions Tour event that will be played March 30-April 3, 2011.
Dancing Rabbit's Azaleas and Oaks courses serve as amenities of Pearl River Resort in central Mississippi and roll out over a combined 14,000 yards. Each of these par-72 masterpieces embrace the gently rolling hills and valleys indigenous to the region.
Grand Bear, an amenity of Harrah’s Grand Biloxi Casino, is set deep inside the DeSoto Forest along the red-clay banks of the Big Biloxi and Little Biloxi Rivers and features towering pines, natural cypress wetlands, secluded fairways, deep bunkers and impeccably manicured greens.
Known as a course where nature, beauty and “pure golf” combine, The Preserve, an amenity of the Palace Casino Resort, is a Jerry Pate design that sits adjacent to an 1,800-acre undisturbed piece of land, which includes water, wetlands and a layout with tricky greens complexes.
Shell Landing is a Davis Love III designed masterpiece in Gautier, a mile away from the Mississippi Sound. The course serves as an amenity of IP Casino Resort & Spa and features a unique layout that rolls through a combination of tall pines, marshes and bayous.
The Bridges is the state's only Arnold Palmer golf course design and is an amenity of Hollywood Casino Bay St. Louis. The course is set among 600 acres of moss-draped live oaks, pines, magnolias and features 21 bridges that span nearly one mile.
For information on all of the value-laden stay-and-play packages available in Mississippi go to: visitmississippi.org
